


Drowning

by NerdyHalfling



Series: Smol Naddpod Things [10]
Category: Not Another D&D Podcast (Podcast)
Genre: Before the campaign, Egwene is a cool and detached teen except when she isn't, Grief/Mourning, Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-12
Updated: 2020-08-12
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:40:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25860721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NerdyHalfling/pseuds/NerdyHalfling
Summary: "I gotta say, missing you comes in wavesAnd tonight I'm drowning"Just Egwene thinking about her parents because I listened to Drowning by Chris Young while having a lot of Egwene feelings.
Series: Smol Naddpod Things [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1826578
Comments: 4
Kudos: 6





	Drowning

**Author's Note:**

> So I finally added a non-modern verse thing to this. Thanks for checking it out, and as always I super appreciate comments!

Egwene is fine. She has her brother, and her Nana, and she’s a tough teenager. She is  _ fine _ . She misses her parents, of course, but it’s not like she lets it consume her. Her losing touch with Pelor has nothing to do with how he let her parents be taken from her, she’s just not  _ into  _ that church stuff, okay? 

So what if most of her friends have their moms and dads to help them out with stuff? She doesn’t need that, she’s tough and she looks after Erlin and Nana. 

And Nana, for all that she is old, and strict, she is great. When Egwene throws a fit about not wanting to go to Erlin’s Green Teen Glee Team recital and storms off to her room Nana follows, and instead of scolding Egwene for slamming the door she asks in that insufferably understanding tone why she doesn’t want to go.

“I just need some stupid space, okay? I don’t want to go to that stupid recital and listen to their stupid songs, and be around all those stupid people!” Egwene goes off, and somehow Nana understands that what Egwene means is that she wants some time for herself, maybe she even gets that being in the church is too much tonight, because when Nana and Erlin take off Egwene is allowed to stay home, and for the next several hours she’ll have the place to herself. 

See, Egwene is tough most of the time, but sometimes hanging out with cheerful children singing praise to Pelor, or the boy king or somebody else she doesn’t give a damn about isn’t for her, okay? So what if she needs some space to herself, everyone does. And so what if when she does have the space to herself she climbs onto a chair to get that box in the back of the top shelf of her closet, the one she’s hidden where neither Erlin or Nana can find it. 

Egwene is fine. She’s the cool, detached teen who gets by just fine without her parents, thank you very much. The thing about grief though, is that it happens in waves. So some days, like today, she sits cross legged on her floor, looking through a box of pictures that she usually keeps hidden away. There’s drawings in there, a lot of them, in the childish scribbles of a much younger Egwene. The very earliest ones have her, her mom and her dad in them, or at least three figures she knows are supposed to resemble them. Then as time passes and the drawings get better a fourth figure enters them, Erlin. 

Shaking fingers picks up one drawing at a time, trace the lines she drew a lifetime ago, and every now and then her eyes flicker to the door, as if to make sure she is alone. No one else gets to see her like this, because she’s fine, she’s really fine. Her eyes are just stinging because these are dusty old pictures. 

  
  


Among the childish drawings there’s a professionally drawn picture of two young halflings in their finest clothes. It’s her mom and dad on their wedding day. She’s fairly sure Nana knows she took it from the dresser in the hallway right after they died, but the old woman hasn’t said anything about it. 

Egwene recognizes the smiles in the picture. Her father smiled just like that whenever he was proud of her, which was quite often because Egwene worked very hard to impress him. He taught her how to shoot a bow, and she still remembers the sound of his cheer when she first hit the target. She swears she can feel his hands on her waist, lifting her small body up and spinning her around in celebration. 

She presses her eyes shut when the first tear falls. She doesn’t cry, not usually, but right now it just washes over her like a tidal wave, and she can’t hold back the choked sob. In addition to being her father he’d been her best friend, and she wanted so bad to be fine and strong, but sometimes that’s just hard, okay? Like when she remembers her mother braiding her hair so that it wouldn’t get in the way when she was practicing archery with her father and that memory somehow morphs into that of her loose braid coming undone after just an hour the first time she tried to do it herself after the war. 

She wants to be strong, as strong as her parents were, but so much changed when they died, and even now Egwene can’t stop herself from noticing the things that would’ve been different if they were still here. 

After they died she prayed. On her knees, tears streaming down her face, she begged and pleaded for Pelor to give them back to her. For days she refused to leave her room, convinced that any moment now he would listen to her, but he didn’t. Her parents remained dead, and Egwene had to get back on her feet and be strong enough to protect her little brother and her Nana. 

That’s a long time ago, and she doesn’t really pray anymore. When she does, because she can’t get out of going to church every time, she doesn’t mean it, not really. It’s like no other prayer really matters after that big one. She doesn’t talk about this of course, she just scoffs and tells anyone who inquires about her faith to mind their own business. 

Underneath all the pictures there’s a piece of string from her first bow, she twirls it between her fingers trying to envision the young girl she’d been, firing her very first shot with her own bow, with both of her parents there, watching excitedly as she pulled the string back with great effort and let the arrow fly, missing the target by several feet. They clapped anyway. Smiling at the memory she puts the string back in the box. 

Down the street she can hear the way too loud, cheerful voices of Beverly and Erlin talking about their upcoming field trip to Moonstone, and suddenly she’s in a hurry. Every picture is put back in the box and she hurries to climb back onto the chair to put it back in its space before furiously wiping the tears away. Minutes later Erlin knocks too eagerly on her door, asking if she wants to hear about the show, and she does, but her eyes are still red and puffy. 

“Not now, dweeb,” she says, a bit harsher than intended, and she can feel the disappointment in his footsteps as he walks away. 

Walls up, Egwene Kindleaf. 

_ So, I'm gonna pull out pictures, ones with you in 'em _

_ Laugh and cry a little while reminiscing _

_ By myself _

_ I can't help _

_ That all I think about is _

_ How you were taken way too soon _

_ It ain't the same here without you _

_ I gotta say, missing you comes in waves _

_ And tonight I'm drowning _


End file.
